1. Title, director and release year?
Blind Spot, Aldofo Doring, 2008 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? The film argues we are a society addicted to oil. We are narrated as a very unique historical period in time characterized by cheap, abundant energy. Throughout our lifetimes oil resources have been increasing and thus oil has become a derivative of the products we consume and the environments in which we act and live. The film warms of peak oil hitting sooner than we are prepared for, suggesting drastic lifestyle modifications and uncomfortable alterations. Describing the magnitude the disappearance of oil would incur, one interviewee suggests life will soon be categorized as BPO (before peak oil) and AFO (after peak oil). Not only does our way of life depend on the many comforts oil provides but the health of our entire economic system rests on this natural resource as well. This importance is a feature specifically founding the American and other highly developed nation's economies. Other cultures will survive and perhaps even prosper from the absence of this natural resource, yet the developed world will be swept off its feet in need for rapid and drastic social and organizational reconstruction.
3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? Economic, Cultural and Behavioral reliance on oil. Our free market enterprise system relies on the rapid, frequent, and long distance exchange of goods afforded by cheap fuel accessibility. We live, behave and shop in a culture told to consume. Advertising agencies make ownership of the newest sneaker a priority, even to those too poor to afford healthy care or nutritional food. The American poor is not a product-poor society. Our poverty metrics are based on car ownership - even those considered well below poverty lines still receive cable television and need a car to get to work.
Prices control human behavior mandating monetary wealth and income distribution. Once the ecological limitations of fossil fuels is reached, enterprises loose control over price and thus, the power over wealth distribution and isolated pockets of prosperity. We can no longer rely on barrel price to dictate the price of goods causing "massive dislocation" and complete failure of our current system. This event leads one to consider our technological yardstick to measure progress as a sustainability issue in itself. We have become a society reliant on a system prioritizing technological innovation as the only measure of progress. Thus resulting in a product heavy, individualized, technologically saturated environment replacing any capacity or need to facilitate communal objectives or societal health as measures of progress.
4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? I found the Jone's paradox of increasing production efficiency resulting in an increase in product usage a very interesting concept. Behaviorally we know no limits to individual consumption levels. "Things" can be produced 1,000 time cheaper and 1,000 times faster allowing us to use 1,000 times more of it. If told production efficiencies would drop in half next year our system would behaviorally have no margin to react. As a society we cannot understand or fathom life without the massive amounts of stuff we can use. The very beginning of the film comments that what was once 6-8 weeks of human labor can be replaced by a $2.50 gallon of gasoline. Exemplified is the widespread acceptance of the environmental benefits of fuel efficient cars however with that added efficiencies more and more cars are on the road traveling further than ever before. Consumer, spending culture tells us that we cannot solve a problem by consuming or acting less but rather by consuming more manufactured or more advanced goods allowing us to consume more than we did in the first place.
Connected to all this is the discussion created by a historical anthropologist analyzing the fall of the Roman Empire. He describes the destruction as a result of a societal net loss. The Roman Empire is characterized as a complex society with very high costs just to maintain the current level of living. Once peak oil is reached our cost efficient ways will become too environmentally and logistically inefficient to produce any net gain. Delivering the average meal 1500 miles for example, will no longer profitably exist in our society causing either drastic societal change or failure.
5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?
6. What additional information does this film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc.? The film mentioned the use of corn to create ethanol as an energy negative suggesting it requires more energy to produce than it provides at the end. I believe food (especially corn) is never a sustainable solution so long as there is world hunger. Corn and other grain crops (rice and wheat) used to create energy products has increased the demand for those products, yet it has decreased the amount available for Food Aid programs. Food Insecurity I would like to look more into this issue of solving one problem while emphasizing a more significant one.
7. What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems? I think the film is definitely likely to change the way people view the efficiency or success of our current economic and social system. The film almost lightly, agues of the sure and soon demise of our society as we know it. An activist in the film explains we "will walk to the end of the world" so we may experience "infinite growth on a finite planet." I think that message will stick with viewers to help possibly change the way we view our consumption patterns.
8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film? The film suggests we realign our definition of true progress and evaluate the validity of our complex, developed society. Depressingly, there are no individual points of intervention, besides perhaps changing some minor trends in consumption, that could overpower the systematic failure the film argues we are sure to meet.
9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value Maybe some inspiring insight on organizations who are working to help remedy or lessen the pain of system failure. It may of damaged the nature of the film but some words of inspiration or even the slightest sight of change may have helped validate the film's resourcefulness to the viewer.
1. Title, director and release year?
Blind Spot, Aldofo Doring, 2008
2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?
The film argues we are a society addicted to oil. We are narrated as a very unique historical period in time characterized by cheap, abundant energy. Throughout our lifetimes oil resources have been increasing and thus oil has become a derivative of the products we consume and the environments in which we act and live. The film warms of peak oil hitting sooner than we are prepared for, suggesting drastic lifestyle modifications and uncomfortable alterations. Describing the magnitude the disappearance of oil would incur, one interviewee suggests life will soon be categorized as BPO (before peak oil) and AFO (after peak oil). Not only does our way of life depend on the many comforts oil provides but the health of our entire economic system rests on this natural resource as well. This importance is a feature specifically founding the American and other highly developed nation's economies. Other cultures will survive and perhaps even prosper from the absence of this natural resource, yet the developed world will be swept off its feet in need for rapid and drastic social and organizational reconstruction.
3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?
Economic, Cultural and Behavioral reliance on oil. Our free market enterprise system relies on the rapid, frequent, and long distance exchange of goods afforded by cheap fuel accessibility. We live, behave and shop in a culture told to consume. Advertising agencies make ownership of the newest sneaker a priority, even to those too poor to afford healthy care or nutritional food. The American poor is not a product-poor society. Our poverty metrics are based on car ownership - even those considered well below poverty lines still receive cable television and need a car to get to work.
Prices control human behavior mandating monetary wealth and income distribution. Once the ecological limitations of fossil fuels is reached, enterprises loose control over price and thus, the power over wealth distribution and isolated pockets of prosperity. We can no longer rely on barrel price to dictate the price of goods causing "massive dislocation" and complete failure of our current system. This event leads one to consider our technological yardstick to measure progress as a sustainability issue in itself. We have become a society reliant on a system prioritizing technological innovation as the only measure of progress. Thus resulting in a product heavy, individualized, technologically saturated environment replacing any capacity or need to facilitate communal objectives or societal health as measures of progress.
4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?
I found the Jone's paradox of increasing production efficiency resulting in an increase in product usage a very interesting concept. Behaviorally we know no limits to individual consumption levels. "Things" can be produced 1,000 time cheaper and 1,000 times faster allowing us to use 1,000 times more of it. If told production efficiencies would drop in half next year our system would behaviorally have no margin to react. As a society we cannot understand or fathom life without the massive amounts of stuff we can use. The very beginning of the film comments that what was once 6-8 weeks of human labor can be replaced by a $2.50 gallon of gasoline. Exemplified is the widespread acceptance of the environmental benefits of fuel efficient cars however with that added efficiencies more and more cars are on the road traveling further than ever before. Consumer, spending culture tells us that we cannot solve a problem by consuming or acting less but rather by consuming more manufactured or more advanced goods allowing us to consume more than we did in the first place.
Connected to all this is the discussion created by a historical anthropologist analyzing the fall of the Roman Empire. He describes the destruction as a result of a societal net loss. The Roman Empire is characterized as a complex society with very high costs just to maintain the current level of living. Once peak oil is reached our cost efficient ways will become too environmentally and logistically inefficient to produce any net gain. Delivering the average meal 1500 miles for example, will no longer profitably exist in our society causing either drastic societal change or failure.
5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?
6. What additional information does this film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc.?
The film mentioned the use of corn to create ethanol as an energy negative suggesting it requires more energy to produce than it provides at the end. I believe food (especially corn) is never a sustainable solution so long as there is world hunger. Corn and other grain crops (rice and wheat) used to create energy products has increased the demand for those products, yet it has decreased the amount available for Food Aid programs. Food Insecurity I would like to look more into this issue of solving one problem while emphasizing a more significant one.
7. What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?
I think the film is definitely likely to change the way people view the efficiency or success of our current economic and social system. The film almost lightly, agues of the sure and soon demise of our society as we know it. An activist in the film explains we "will walk to the end of the world" so we may experience "infinite growth on a finite planet." I think that message will stick with viewers to help possibly change the way we view our consumption patterns.
8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?
The film suggests we realign our definition of true progress and evaluate the validity of our complex, developed society. Depressingly, there are no individual points of intervention, besides perhaps changing some minor trends in consumption, that could overpower the systematic failure the film argues we are sure to meet.
9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value
Maybe some inspiring insight on organizations who are working to help remedy or lessen the pain of system failure. It may of damaged the nature of the film but some words of inspiration or even the slightest sight of change may have helped validate the film's resourcefulness to the viewer.